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Peter Greer, PhD

Preventing Radiation Treatment Errors

Dr. Greer

Peter Greer, PhD, and his team at Calvary Mater Newcastle Hospital and the University of Newcastle, Australia, have developed the WatchDog system that monitors dose delivery in real time for radiation therapy patients and can prevent errors. The system uses imaging equipment that is present on all linear accelerators and could have a major impact on radiation oncology safety and accuracy.

With the grant from ROI, Dr. Greer and his team:

  • Implemented and tested the WatchDog system, which uses images captured by EPID to determine treatment delivery accuracy in real time. 
  • Performed real-time patient treatment verification.
  • Acquired real-time patient verification data at multiple institutions. Optimized the system for error detection.

Additional Research

Since the completion of the ROI grant:

  • The National Health and Medical Research Council (Australian Government) awarded Dr. Greer $593,742 (AUD, approximately $450,000 USD) over three years for continued testing of the WatchDog system. 
  • Testing of the WatchDog system has continued and expanded to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NY, United States, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia and Calvary Mater Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia.
  • Development of a new version that will be able to be used clinically is underway.

Publications

Presentations